I only caught the tail end of this new item on Cape Talk this evening, but apparently the local minibus association is on a campaign to make its drivers more friendly. According to the spokesperson quoted on the radio "we are going to make our drivers as friendly as SAA staff".

I just hope that they are referring to the SAA cabin crew, who are generally pretty friendly, and not the call-center staff, who are quite friendly when spoken to, but otherwise impossible to get hold of!

Noble aims, but I wonder if they are not setting their heights a little too high?

A few months ago, I bought a few golf shirts when I was in USA. I bought them over there mainly because there is such a huge selection, the quality is great, and the prices are far cheaper than back home.

So, imagine my suprise when I discovered that one of the shirts that I bought was made in Lesotho, just around the corner (in fact inside) South Africa. This leads to an interesting question. Why is is that I can buy clothing in USA that were made just around the corner for about half what it costs in South Africa?

Our textiles industry has a fascination with the imported Chinese clothing, and how the imports are affecting our textiles industry. However it baffels me that I can buy clothing basically made in South Africa for fall less than it costs to buy a similar product in South Africa. Something doesn’t make sense.

Can somebody please explain?

Isn’t she beautiful?

She is a brand new Cort MP710F (Lefty) acoustic guitar. She has a solid spruce top, maple back and sides and rosewood fretboard.The electronics is very good-Fishman classic4 pickup, with build in tuner.

The sound is unbelievable – very full and clear. I am really looking forward to playing it at our gig tomorrow evening.

I haven’t named her yet, but in time once I get to know her, I will name her.

View from the tail

View from the head

My new baby

Guitar electronics and pickup

Today is a sad day for South African democracy. It is because we will never know if Jacob Zuma, the man who will most likely be our next president is guilty or innocent of corruption. This is because the case will never go to court. This case involves 16 counts of curruption, and over 200 witnesses. The truth will never be known.

Fact:

• The NPA said that it is “neither possible nor desirable” to prosecute Zuma.
• The person accused of bribing Zuma, Schabir Shaik was convicted (he was recently released on medical parole).
• The NPA have dropped all charges after over 7 years of investigation.
• Head of the DA, Helen Zille was barred from entering the NPA offices, or from attending the press conference.
• Head of the ID, Patricia de Lille was barred from entering the NPA offices, or from attending the press conference.

Opinion:

• The NPA have acted as prosecution, judge and jury.
• It is very convenient that just 2 1/2 weeks before national elections, all charges are dropped.
• Why were the heads of two of the strongest oposition parties denied access to a public press conference?
• Why did the case (which was supposedly so strong) dropped?
• Why can the person presenting a bribe be convicted, while the person (allegedly) receiving it, goes free?

It is a sad day for South African democracy.

Hi All

I posted a few weeks ago about a blogger being sued for criticising a local business. Today, I received the following update from the facebook group. To summarize, it looks like the issue has been resolved (I have edited it for brevity).

I met with QVC at the Midrand Protea Hotel. There were no lawyers and the meeting went extremely well. We all needed to come to an agreement that we could be happy with, and not leave feeling bitter. The agreement we drew up and signed (using a laptop and a portable printer) is the best we could manage, and I’m happy with it.

I have removed the articles and references from my blog, and the court cases are being suspended for 5 years. Provided I don’t write derogatory things about QVC in that time, the cases will be allowed to lapse, and no harm is done.

Bear in mind that my initial visit to QVC was 18 months ago, and much has changed during that time, including the way they do their marketing. Whether I agree with the way they do business or not is irrelevant: they changed in response to my complaints, and the complaints of others, and had I known that I would not have written further articles in August and September last year.

I think the blogger community has done a great job in highlighting this issue, and I thank everyone who participated. We have all learnt a great deal.

Donn Edwards

As bloggers, we can now breath a big sigh of relief, but it does hilight that issue that what we write can get us into trouble. Be careful what you say, because you can be held accountable for it (this does not just apply to bloggers, but to all online activity). So, if you are not prepared to defend your voice, then don’t say anything.

Where I support Donn is that he was willing to be accountable for what he had written, and to defend his actions.

I don’t think that this is the last time an SA blogger is going to end up in court, which is why it is so important for bloggers to come up with some sort of code of ethics to abide to.

According to CNET, Apple announced yesterday that they will be removing DRM copy-protection from their entire ITunes store catalogue.

This means that you will be able to purchase music from ITunes, and listen to it on any MP3 player, essentially decoupling ITunes from the IPOD, and making the store available to non IPOD users.

Since I firmly believe that the only future for the music industry is to make it cheaper and easier to legally obtain music than to obtain it illegally, I think that this is a major move in the right direction.

The pricing of music will change, whereby current chart songs will be more expensive and the majority of the catalogue will reduce to 79c per song (the price has been $1 since they start trading about 5 years ago). I am convinced that this is only the first step, and that we can expect further price reductions.

Now, if only Apple will open up the store to users in South Africa…

A blogger is being sued for defamation by the RCI-affiliated Quality Vacation Club (QVC) for criticising it on his website Insights and Rants.

This is of huge interest to be, because I often write about good and bad service in my Orchids and Onions section of my blog site. Personally, I feel that if you don’t open your business to public scrutiny and comment, you should question your business practises and integrity very closely.

According to Independent Online,

Donn Edwards was phoned by a telemarketer last year and told that he had won a car. All he would have to do to claim his prize, he was told, was attend a prize-giving ceremony in Midrand, north of Johannesburg.

When he and his wife arrived at the venue, they discovered that the prize-giving ceremony was a QVC marketing presentation at which he and his wife, and the other “guests”, were told to choose a key, after the airing of a video, to determine if he had won the car. He had not.

Edwards wrote about his experience, and his unhappiness about being misled, on his blog.The result of this is that QCV are suing him for damages of R461 500.

Pamela Stein, a partner at legal firm Webber Wentzel Bowens, said the blogger would be able to defend his actions on the basis of fair comment.

“The right of fair comment, along with truth for the public benefit, is one of the fundamental rights of free speech,”

“I have no doubt that commentary that is in the consumer’s interests is in the public interest.”

It will be a very sad day if RCI win this court case. Freedom of expression, and the right to tell the truth are fundamental rights. If RCI are concerned about Donn’s views, they have every right to respond, to comment and to tell their side of the story. However, in my opinion, a large organisation suing a single person that is unhappy is not the approach to follow.

The full artice is on IOL.

The Facebook support group is here.

I have just got back from renewing my drivers license at the Hillstar Traffic Department in Cape Town. With visions of long queues, tedious forms, and a complicated and slow eNaTS computer system, I was dreading the experience. Well, to my utter surprise, it was nothing like that. It was a fast and painless experience.

In theory, my new license will be ready in 6-8 weeks.

So, here is the process.

What do you need to bring?

1. 2x passport photos (preferably black and white, but colour seems to be fine)
2. R100 fee
3. a black pen (they don’t have any there)
4. Your old drivers license and your ID book
5. book / magazine / ipod etc

What is the best time to renew?

I can only get there on a Friday, so all the details below relate to a Friday experience. I originally arrived at about 12:00pm, and they were very busy, it clearly was not going to get less busy in the afternoon, so I left. Yes I admit that lunch time is probably not the best time to renew.

Next time, I arrived at about 8:30am, and they were not very busy. In total, it took me about an hour from start to finish, which was not too bad. However, when I left at 9:30am, they were almost empty, so I think that about 9:30-10am would probably be the best time.

They are open from 7:45am until 3:00pm, but they did warn that if the queue’s are too long, they will close the doors earlier, so be careful.

What is the process?

1. Stand in the reception queue – they will give you whatever forms you need (the green form for drivers license renewal)
2. Go to the eye test/fingerprint queue. You can fill out your form while you wait. It is quite long but moves reasonably quickly. The eye test and fingerprinting is done at the same time.
3. Pay at the cashiers desk. Keep the receipt, because it extends the validity of your current drivers license by 2 months should the new license not arrive before your old one expires.
4. They will send you a postcard when your new license is ready – in theory in about 6-8 weeks. Update (13 Feb 2009) After three months, I was still waiting and had not received notification. So, on the off change that it was ready I went to the collections dept. Sure enough, it was ready, and I was told that they had stopped sending out notification. So, don’t hold your breath waiting for any postcard, whatever they tell you! Oh, and there was no queue at collections.

That’s it  – easy and painless.

By the way, don’t bother trying to phone them – the phone just rings.

Tags: drivers license renewals traffic department

Today is the annual Rotary Dragon Boat Race. They used to be at the V&A Waterfront, but they have now moved to Zandvlei, just down the road from my house.

While the competitors all very serious when racing, the event is all in good fun, with all proceeds going to Rotary charitable projects.

Dragon boat racing originated in ancient china, and has been a sport for over 20 years, but it became an international sport as late as 1976.

Here are a few pics.

I kill where I wish and none dare resist – JRR Tolkien – The Hobbit

The Start Line – do you know how they struggled to get all the boats into a straight line before they started the race?

And they’re off…

This is serious business

The sea scouts were also out in force…

…and so were the windsurfers.

And finally, summer has finally arrived. The weather is about 29 degrees today, it is a glorious hot summer day.

The Spring flowers – about a month late, but better late than never